the removal of the family to England, to the care of a friend; and the last mention made of Ballandella is, that she was able to read as well as any white child of the same age. _Miago._--This last sketch of native character may serve to place in a striking, yet fair light, the perplexing situation of the half-civilised blacks, the strong inducements for them to relapse into barbarism again, and, consequently, the difficulty that stands in the way of their being thoroughly reclaimed. It is impossible to do this better than in the very words of Captain Grey.[81] "The officers of the _Beagle_ took away with them a native of the name of Miago, who remained absent with them for several months. I saw him on the north-west coast, on board the _Beagle_, apparently perfectly civilised; he waited at the gun-room mess, was temperate, (never tasting spirits,) attentive, cheerful, and remarkably clean in his person. The next time I saw him was at Swan River, where he had been left on the return of the _Beagle_. He was then again a savage, almost naked, painted all over, and had been concerned in several murders. Several persons here told me,--'You see the taste for a savage life was strong in him, and he took to the bush again directly.' Let us pause for a moment and consider. [81] Grey's Western Australia, vol. ii. p. 370. "Miago, when he was landed, had amongst the white people none who would be truly friends of his;--they would give him scraps from their table, but the very outcasts of the whites would not have treated him as an equal,--they had no sympathy with him,--he could not have married a white woman,--he had no certain means of subsistence open to him,--he never could have been either a husband or a father, if he had lived apart from his own people;--where, amongst the whites, was he to find one who would have filled for him the place of his black mother, whom he is much attached to? What white man would have been his brother? What white woman his sister? He had two courses left open to him,--he could either have renounced all natural ties, and have led a hopeless, joyless life among the whites, ever a servant, ever an inferior being; or he could renounce civilisation, and return to the friends of his childhood, and to the habits of his youth. He chose the latter course, and I think that I should have done the same." [Illustration: SYDNEY IN ITS INFANCY--VIEW FROM THE SOUTH.] CHAPTER VII. FIRST YEARS OF THE COLONY OF NEW SOUTH WALES.